How do you quote a short story?

When quoting from any published text, these are the steps you need to take. First determine the content you're going to quote. Introduce it with something like, "According to..." or "In the words of..." Next, place the content you are quoting into quotation marks. Finally, add your parenthetical citation to the end followed by a period. (this is for MLA format)
So if I want to quote something from Ernest Hemingway's "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place," here is how it will appear in my paper...


In the words of Ernest Hemingway, "Some lived in it and never felt it but he knew it was nada y pues nada y pues nada" (Hemingway 3).

If you are going to skip content, quote like this: "Some . . . never felt it but he knew it was nada y pues nada y pues nada" (Hemingway 3) You cannot take out content to change the meaning of the quote! Example: "Do not skate" changed to "Do . . . skate."

If your quote contains more than one sentence, such as here: "Her eyes were blue. To be precise, a clear azure that could make the sky cry with jealousy" (Example 5). and you wish to take content out directly after the period, use four dots in your ellipsis instead of three: "Her eyes were blue. . . . a clear azure that could make the sky cry with jealousy" (Example 5). Even if your quote ends on a period, don't include it until after the citation. This shows that the quote belongs to the citation. If your quote doesn't end on a period, add an ellipsis to it: "Her eyes were blue . . . a clear azure that could make the sky cry . . . " (Example 5).

For block quotes (quotes that are longer than four lines), use this format. Take the content you wish to quote and place it in the paper after a colon, pressing enter or return to skip a line. Indent the quote so that it appears two inches into the page (including the margin). You can find more information about quoting properly at the Purdue OWL.